Mongolia’s government said on Friday it had reached a preliminary agreement with French mining group Orano to develop a long-awaited $1.6 billion uranium mining project, Reuters reported.
The draft deal agreement has been submitted to the Mongolian parliament for preliminary discussion, the government said. The project, with an initial investment of $500 million and a total investment of $1.6 billion, will start its preparatory phase from 2024 to 2027, with first production expected in 2028. Peak production will reach 2.6 million metric tons in 2044.
“This agreement is an important step forward in boosting domestic investment and job opportunities for the Mongolian people,” Mongolian Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai said in a statement.
The government had previously said it had reached a final agreement with Orano, but it later walked back the statement, saying it had reached a preliminary agreement.
Orano, a major uranium producer with mines in Canada, Kazakhstan and Niger, said on its website that it has been operating in Mongolia for more than 25 years in exploration activities.
According to a 2020 joint report by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mongolia’s uranium reserves are estimated at around 60,500 tonnes of uranium.
A 2019 report by the Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry revealed that the mining industry accounts for 25% of Mongolia’s GDP and 90% of total exports, according to the World Nuclear Association, with the mining industry employing 3.6% of the country’s population. Currently, there is no active uranium mining in Mongolia.
Uranium was produced from the Dornod mine in Mongolia by Russia until 1995.
The company has been successful in its exploration activities, discovering and registering significant uranium resources, and its subsidiary Orano in Mongolia has obtained three mining licenses and successfully conducted two pilot tests.
Orano CEO Nicolas Maes said earlier this year that Western countries would need additional incentives and sanctions on Russia to reduce its dependence on Russian supplies of nuclear fuel.
He told the Financial Times in an interview in October 2024:
“In order to completely separate from Russia, we need new capacities, and industrial groups will only invest if they have long-term contracts.”
According to the attached table from the World Nuclear Energy Association, Kazakhstan topped the world’s uranium production from its mines in 2022, with 21,227 metric tons of raw uranium, followed by Canada and Namibia.
There are several methods for extracting raw uranium from formations and rocks inside the earth, the most important of which are (open pit mining/on the surface of the earth, underground mining, and in situ extraction), each of which is suitable for different types of uranium deposits. The following is an overview of the basic methods:
Open pit mining:
This method involves removing large amounts of soil above it to reach the uranium ore deposits near the surface. Once the ore is removed, it is loaded into trucks and transported to a mill to be crushed and converted into a smaller form.
This method is effective for deposits near the surface, large and allows for large-scale operations, but it can cause significant environmental disturbance, including landscape change and water pollution.
Underground mining:
This method is used when uranium deposits are too deep to be mined in open pit mines, where miners dig shafts or tunnels to reach the ore, then the ore is blasted and extracted and then brought to the surface.
This method allows access to deeper deposits, which may result in less surface disturbance, but is more expensive and dangerous due to the risks associated with working underground, including collapses and gas exposure.
In-situ Recovery (ISL)
This method is known as in-situ recovery, and involves injecting a solution (usually acidic or alkaline) into an area containing uranium ore deposits through wells, where the solution dissolves the uranium, and then pumping the uranium-rich solution (the extractive solution) to the surface where the uranium is extracted, after the solution has been separated.
This method is less invasive than conventional mining, involves less surface disturbance, and has lower operating costs for some deposits, but can cause groundwater contamination, if not managed properly, and is only possible for fluid-permeable deposits, not solid, or zero-permeable deposits.
Heap extraction
In this method, crushed uranium ore is piled into heaps, and the extraction solution is sprayed over them. The solution will seep through the heap, dissolving the uranium, which is then collected at the bottom, and the solution is separated from the uranium.
This method can be used for low-grade ores that may not be economically viable for conventional mining methods, but there are environmental concerns, similar to the previous in-situ extraction method, regarding solution management and potential contamination.
Post-mining uranium extraction
After mining, the uranium ore goes through grinding, where it is crushed and chemically treated to separate the uranium from other minerals. The resulting uranium concentrate, known as “Yellow Cake” (U3O8), is then processed for use in nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons when enriched to 90% or higher uranium-235.
Environmental and Safety Considerations:
All uranium extraction methods must take into account environmental impact, particularly radiation exposure and radioactive waste management, and regulatory guidelines and safety measures are critical to minimizing environmental and health risks.
Each method has its own applications based on geological, economic, and environmental factors, and the choice of method depends largely on the characteristics of the uranium deposit, the regulatory environment, and the technology available.
Discover more from Daily NEWS Global 24/7
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
